My Buggy (re)Build.

RyanB · Post by **RyanB** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 10:11 am

Well here is my new "project". Leatherneck suggested taking pics of my progress so here it is...
This is as it sits just after I brought it home.

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Goodies I got with the car. Full set of Street tires/Rims and also Sand Paddles!

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Damage to the front of the car....

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Yanked most everything out...

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I am yanking the body off the pan at the moment. There is some fiberglass repair I want to do and also paint it Dark Blue with MetalFlake. I may try to get enough of the small things fixed to get it out on the sand for the 22nd.

It has a built up type1 transmission for Sand and a 1836cc motor. Has dual carbs which I am not fond of. Will see if I can get them dialed in.

I have to redo the turning brake somewhat as one of the brake lines snapped... Big project but I've always wanted a Manx Style buggy!

~Ryan B

UPDATE (7/17/06):

As I mentioned above, I was yanking the body off the pan. Well, the further I got into it the more things I found I didnt like.. Isnt that always the case though!?

Here the pan is off and I found the pedal cluster full of sand and badly rusted. The master cylendar was also pretty much shot. Decided I was going to clean up the entire pan and give it a simple spray paint job and also weld up the gaping hole where the e-brake was...

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Here I've cleaned up the pan and welded in 14 guage plate over the hole. Yes, the side you see has ALOT of boogers... I had the wire feed up too high. The other side looks alot better!

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1st coat of chip resistant black paint is sprayed on. I only bought one can though. Need to buy more. I'd like to get 3-4 coats on. Plus I have more drilling to do when I put in my other prake lines so need to wait on more painting.

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So, since I didnt have the paint I needed and am still working out the front brakes... What to do??? Put together my disk brake system for the rear! 0o0o0oooo purdy!!! I also put on new gas shocks as well.

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Look Ma !! Rear tires!! Almost looks like a car again! Yes they are street tires. Still sourcing the rims for my rear paddles.

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So... I had been trying to tune my engine. Ran into a fuel delivery problem on the 3/4 side. I pulled the plug and noticed "crap" come out near the coolin fin area. Well time to investigate.. Glad I did. Oh my ....

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Something decided to take up residence in there while the car was in "storage"... yeesh!

Well thats what I got done this past weekend...
Things to do near future:
Get Front drums re-installed.
Replace and repack front wheel bearings
Complete front brake system with some kind of "disable" function.
More paint coats on Pan.
Re-install and complete turning brake integration with new rear brake system.
Re-wire buggy body. Make removal of body easy with quick disconnect wiring.
Aquire aluminum lightweight 15x14 Rear rims for Paddle tires. 4.5 on 5 Chevy bolt.
Aquire aluminum lightweight 15x4 front rims for sand smoothies. 4.5 on 5 Chevy bolt.

Things to do far future:
Disk brakes on front.
Repair fiberglass hood.
Metalflake blue paintjob.
Full cage rollbar.

Post by **Leatherneck** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 3:07 pm

Good thing you went a step further and pulled the tin off, what a rats nest literally.

What are the white things (not shocks) that are coming down or up to the body?

RyanB · Post by **RyanB** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 3:40 pm

It's funny you ask that because I've been wondering the same thing myself. The PO of the car "thinks" they were used for towing. Which makes no sence. Because they are RIGHT in the way of where my towbar would hook up. They are welded in, but not very well. The white is actually a sticker or something. Has me confused. I was thinking maybe they were supposed to be additional support for the beam because of the offroading.

I am probably going to cut them out since I'll be towing the car now and then...

RyanB · Post by **RyanB** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 3:58 pm

Here is a quick and dirty pic of what I have planned for my brake system.

That is if I can find all the correct fittings... I also want to do a custom e-brake. Still need to figure that out...

Post by **Leatherneck** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 4:07 pm

Does your master cylinder have one or two resivors?

RyanB · Post by **RyanB** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 6:40 pm

Single. I would have prefered a double but they didnt have one with the res built onto the top.

subybaja · Post by **subybaja** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 7:07 pm

Those wierd plates make perfect sense if you're using a Jeep towbar:

Have they got holes in them?

bajaherbie · Post by **bajaherbie** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 8:19 pm

[

i thought those white things were a big set of buck teeth.......

Post by **Leatherneck** » Tue Jul 18, 2006 8:23 am

Looks like more weight to me. But then if I want my buggy to lose weight all I have to do is diet. Now that is some cheap horsepower

RyanB · Post by **RyanB** » Tue Jul 18, 2006 8:39 am

So I went to put my front brakes on... And ooops. Can ya see what's wrong with this picture? <sigh>

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So, I grabbed another ball joint beam I had which actually has disk brakes, but from a ghia. It sits a bit lower now. I'll have to find out how to preload the springs a bit more... At least I'll be able to tow it now and it doesn't look like it has buck teeth anymore!

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When I pulled my shocks off the old beam they didnt push apart like I expected. I am assuming they are bad and will replace them soon. Gonna paint my doghouse shround and get the engine back together next.

~RyanB

fl_buggy · Post by **fl_buggy** » Tue Jul 18, 2006 9:01 am

RyanB wrote:So I went to put my front brakes on... And ooops. Can ya see what's wrong with this picture? <sigh>

Your spindle is fuzzy?

RyanB · Post by **RyanB** » Tue Jul 18, 2006 9:55 am

Haha. No, I snapped the lower right bolt while torquing it down. The threads were already rusty and it went in tight... There's no way I'm gonna be able to get that out. So rather then fight it, I just used another beam setup I had..

RyanB · Post by **RyanB** » Wed Jul 19, 2006 8:33 am

Well no pics from last night. Only thing I did was put new coil shocks on the front and put my engine stuff back on. The engine has alot of power and sounds great except for a popping/backfiring from #1. Kinda perplexed on that. Next up is to get a compression tester and check compression on all the cyl. I am worried I have a burnt valve...

If that is the case, I'll be highly disapointed. The "saving grace" for how much I spent on this car is the supposed type 1 sand tranny and the "newly rebuilt" 1835 motor....

With the heat wave approaching we are going to go camping on hood river. So probably cant get back to my buggy until next week.

MNAirHead · Post by **MNAirHead** » Wed Jul 19, 2006 8:38 am

Ryan...

Instead of buying maintenance parts for your ghia front... I can hook you up to a guy who sells the entire kit (spindles out) for $130...

Nice ride --- good choice on the body off.

Tim

RyanB · Post by **RyanB** » Tue Jul 25, 2006 11:25 am

MNAirHead wrote:Ryan...

Instead of buying maintenance parts for your ghia front... I can hook you up to a guy who sells the entire kit (spindles out) for $130...

Nice ride --- good choice on the body off.

Tim

Somewhat confused there Tim. What do you mean by Spindles out?

I've been battling an engine issue for a while. Have a thread about it in the rebuild forum. Anyhow, I have the engine running somewhat ok. Call in to AJ Sims to get some Kadron parts to make it run better.

I finally found the brake shut off I was looking for. Now just need to weld up a braket for it and also for a fuel shut off valve I want to do. Get all that on and a few more coats of paint and will be time to put the body back on! I've also put those offroad coil shocks on the front to see how they handle. They worked good in my Baja.

~RyanB